1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic viewer, and more particularly to an electronic viewer picking up an object such as a negative or positive film and others by means of a solid state imaging device and producing a video signal so as to display an image.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional electronic viewer includes an optical system for picking-up an image, a solid state imaging device (CCD) and an image processing circuit in a main body thereof. An optical image of a subject passes through the optical system and is formed on a light acceptance surface of the CCD. The CCD transmits an image signal to the image processing circuit so as to convert the image signal into a video signal. The video signal is transmitted to a display unit such as a TV monitor, etc.
The applicant of the present invention provides an electronic viewer of this kind. For the electronic viewer, a negative film or a slide film is held in a film carrier. The viewer holds the film carrier with a holding member for the film carrier and picks up a film image by means of the CCD.
Here, photographing is carried not out only with holding a camera laterally (normally) but also with holding the camera vertically. That is, the camera is rotated by 90.degree. when a user desires to photograph something tall or large, etc. Accordingly, there are both images photographed laterally (lateral image) and images photographed vertically (vertical image) on the film. For example, in the case that the film image is picked up in accordance with the lateral image, the vertical image is laid by 90.degree. on the display unit. In this case, the holding member is rotated by 90.degree., so that the vertical image can be erect.
When the vertical image is erect under the magnification for picking up the lateral image, however, the image shall be displayed with missing parts, that is, the upper and lower parts of the image can not be displayed because of the difference of aspect ratio. In this case, the magnification of the optical system is adjusted to be reduced with a zooming dial, so that the film image can be displayed without missing parts.
As a result, the conventional electronic viewer faces the problem that an operation is complicated because the magnification should be changed by operating the zoom dial every time the film image is changed between the lateral image and the vertical image.